Much of what is passed about truth regarding the Catholic Church
is based on myth and sometime bigotry. Find out what the Church really
teaches.

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"Catholic
Answers" produced most of The
tracts in this section. Those residing on this site are earlier versions
collected from CIN and other sources at a time when specific permission
to distribute and reproduce the information was granted. Visit Catholic
Answers to obtain the latest tracts and to purchase printed versions.

The (F) appearing after selected tract titles means the tract is part
of the "Fathers Know Best" series and contains a collection of quotes
from the early Church Fathers.

More Catholic "Inventions"

One of the key points of Loraine Boettner’s magnum opus, Roman Catholicism
(the main sourcebook for professional anti-Catholics) is that Catholicism
must be untrue, because it differs in so many particulars from the Christianity
of the New Testament. Over the centuries, Boettner says, the Catholic Church
has added beliefs, rituals, and customs that contradict those in the Bible.
He calls this "the melancholy evidence of Rome’s steadily increasing
departure from the simplicity of the gospel," and he claims that repeatedly "human
inventions have been substituted for Bible truth and practice" (p.
9).

He argues that Catholicism cannot be the religion established by Christ
because it has all these "extras," forty-five of which he lists
under the title "Some Roman Catholic Heresies and Inventions" (pp.
7–9). A few of these he examines at length in the book, but most
of them are only mentioned and then conveniently dropped.

Many anti-Catholic organizations have reprinted all or portions of Boettner’s
list of "inventions," usually in leaflets which are commonly
distributed outside Catholic churches after Mass. Do they produce the intended
results? Yes and no. It depends on the knowledge and sophistication of
the reader. Some people laugh at the charges, knowing what the facts really
are. Others are stumped for answers, but figure they can establish Catholicism’s
credentials if they have to prove the Church’s legitimacy. Yet some
people are taken in, thinking no one would go to the trouble of disseminating
such information if it were false.

Catholics need to realize that professional anti-Catholics have dozens
of charges like these up their sleeves, and they produce them whenever
they think they can make an impression on people who know less than they.
Bizarre allegations sow confusion in Catholic minds. After all, most Catholics
are not conversant with the finer points of Church history and practice
and are ripe targets for evangelistic Fundamentalists.

In the Catholic Answers tract Catholic "Inventions" we looked
at five of Boettner’s charges. Let’s look at a few more now
that are particularly good examples of bad thinking. These are not really
arguments, but mere statements intended to leave a bad impression. Throw
forty-five of them together in a list, and readers may think there is more
to anti-Catholic charges than meets the eye.

Item: "Making the sign of the cross . . . [A.D.] 300." That’s
it. That’s the whole charge: that the sign of the cross was not "invented" until
well into the Christian era. In reality, we can show that Christians were
making the sign of the cross at a much earlier date. The theologian Tertullian,
writing in A.D. 211, said that "In all our travels and movements in
all our coming in and going out, in putting of our shoes, at the bath,
at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down,
whatever employment occupieth us, we [Christians] mark our foreheads with
the sign [of the cross]" (The Chaplet [Crown] 3). Making the sign
of the cross was already an old custom when he wrote. It may well have
been common even while the apostles were alive.

But the mistake Boettner makes concerning the antiquity of the practice
is not the important thing. The real question is: Why does he single out
this practice at all? The answer: Because the sign of the cross is not
mentioned in the New Testament. The reader is supposed to conclude that
it must be contrary to Christian teaching. But that makes little sense
and, in fact, this line of reasoning undermines Boettner’s own Fundamentalism.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

If Catholicism has changed matters of practice or customs over the centuries,
Fundamentalism has done the same. Indeed, there were no altar calls and
church steeples in the first century.

But the proper question is not whether Christ’s Church today looks
exactly as it did then—if that’s the criterion for discerning
the true Church from false ones, his Church cannot be found anywhere. Rather,
what matters is whether his Church has kept the same beliefs as the early
Church (which Catholicism has, unlike Boettner and all Fundamentalists—not
to mention Evangelicals).

Item: "Priests began to dress differently from laymen . . . [A.D.]
500." So what? This charge can be brought against Fundamentalist preachers
who conduct services while dressed in choir robes. Furthermore, Boettner’s
statement is only a half-truth. The main vestment worn by priests during
Mass is the chasuble, which is really nothing more than a stylized Roman
overcoat. In the sixth century, while fashions changed around them, priests
kept the same clothing they had used for liturgical purposes for some time.
They did not adopt special dress for Mass; they just kept to the old styles,
while everyday fashions changed, and over time their dress began to stand
out.

But It’s in the Bible!

Item: "Extreme Unction . . . [A.D.] 526." This single line is
no doubt intended to make the reader believe the Catholic Church invented
this sacrament (also known as the anointing of the sick) five centuries
after Christ. But Boettner makes no effort to give the Church’s explanation
of its origin. Why? Because the origin is found in the New Testament itself: "Is
any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let
them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and
the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him
up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven" (Jas. 5:14–15).
This scriptural practice dates from the very beginnings of the Church.
If Boettner wants to say this sacrament was invented, he should have said
it was invented while the apostles were still alive—but that would
give the sacrament legitimacy.

Item: "Worship of the cross, images, and relics authorized in . .
. [A.D.] 786." What’s this? Do Catholics give slivers of wood,
carvings of marble, and pieces of bone the kind of adoration they give
God? That is the implication. What if a Catholic were to say to Boettner, "I
saw you kneeling with your Bible in your hands the other day. Why do you
worship a book?" He would rightly answer that he does not worship
a book. Rather, he uses the Bible as an aid to prayer. Likewise, Catholics
do not worship the cross, images, or relics. They use these physical objects
to help them focus their minds and hearts upon Christ and his friends,
the saints in heaven.

The man who keeps a picture of his family in his wallet does not worship
his wife and children; rather, he honors them. The woman who keeps her
parents’ picture on the mantle does not subscribe to ancestor worship;
the picture just reminds her of them so that she may more readily honor
them. (Remember Exodus 20:12: "Honor your father and your mother.")
No one thinks these pictures are objects of worship.

The origin of Boettner’s allegation is that in the Byzantine Empire
there developed what was known as the Iconoclastic heresy, which held that
all images (statues, paintings, mosaics) of saints and of Jesus must be
destroyed because they would be worshipped. In 787, at the Second Council
of Nicaea, this heresy was defeated, and the old custom (dating to the
first century) of permitting artistic representations was again allowed.
Boettner had this date almost right; he simply did not understand either
the history or the doctrine.

Following Paul’s Advice

Item: "Celibacy of the priesthood, decreed by pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand)
. . . [A.D.] 1079." Anti-Catholics take considerable delight in noting
that some of the apostles, including Peter, were married and that for centuries
Catholic priests were allowed to marry.

Catholics do not deny that some of the early popes were married or that
celibacy, for priests in the Western (Latin) Rite, did not become mandatory
until the early Middle Ages. Anti-Catholic writers generally fail to note
that even today many Catholic priests in the Eastern Rites are married,
and that it has always been that way. Celibacy in the Latin Rite is purely
a matter of discipline. It came to be thought that priests could better
fulfill their duties if they remained unmarried.

Nor is this an unbiblical notion; it is Paul’s advice. After saying
he wished those to whom he was writing were, like he, unmarried (1 Cor.
7:7–9), Paul said he thought celibacy was the more perfect state
(1 Cor 7:28b), noting that "[t]he unmarried man is anxious about the
affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious
about worldly affairs, how to please his wife" (1 Cor. 7:32–33).

This applies specifically to ministers of the gospel. When Paul counseled
Timothy about how to fulfill his ministry, he cautioned him: "Share
in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service gets
entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to satisfy the one who
enlisted him" (2 Tim. 2:3–4). And Paul refers applaudingly to
an order of Christian celibate widows (first-century nuns), saying: "But
refuse to enroll younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ
they desire to marry, and so they incur condemnation for having violated
their first pledge" (1 Tim. 5:11–12).

So, the practice of clerical celibacy, even taking vows of celibacy, is
thoroughly biblical. When a man becomes a priest in the Latin Rite he knows
that he will not be able to marry. Marriage is a good thing (in fact, Catholics
acknowledge that Christ elevated it to a sacrament), but it is something
that priests are willing to forgo for the sake of being better priests.

No one is forced to be a priest (or a nun for that matter), so no Catholic
is forced to be celibate. Those who want to take the vows of the religious
life should not object to following the rules. That does not mean that
the rules, as found at any one time, are ideal or cannot be modified—after
all, they are not doctrines, but matters of discipline. However, it does
mean that it is unfair to imply, as Boettner does, that the Catholic faith
scorns marriage.

Christ’s Own Instruction

Item: "Auricular confession of sins to a priest instead of to God,
instituted by Pope Innocent III, in [the] Lateran Council . . . [A.D.]
1215."

Charges like this might make one doubt the good faith of professional
anti-Catholics. It would have taken little effort to discover the antiquity
of auricular confession—and even less to learn that Catholics do
not tell their sins to a priest "instead" of to God, but to God
through a priest.

Origen, writing his Homilies on Leviticus, around 244, refers to the repentant
sinner as one who "does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest
of the Lord." Cyprian of Carthage, writing seven years later in The
Lapsed, says,"Finally, of how much greater faith and more salutary
fear are they who . . . confess to the priests of God in a straightforward
manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience." In
the 300s, Aphraates offers this advice to priests: "If anyone uncovers
his wound before you, give him the remedy of repentance. And he that is
ashamed to make known his weakness, encourage him so that he will not hide
it from you. And when he has revealed it to you, do not make it public" (Treatises
7:4; see the Catholic Answers tract Confession for additional quotations
from the early Church Fathers).

These men, writing almost a thousand years before the Lateran Council
of 1215, refer to a practice that was already well-established. In fact,
it dates back to the time of Jesus, for Christ commissioned the apostles
this way: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you
retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:23). The Lateran
Council did not "invent" the practice; it merely reaffirmed it.

Who Added What?

Item: "Apocryphal books added to the Bible by the Council of Trent
. . . [A.D.] 1546." This reminds one of a famous comment made by a
writer (obviously not a Catholic) who said, in discussing the English Reformation,
that "the pope and his minions then seceded from the Church of England." It
was not the Council of Trent that "added" what Protestants call
the apocryphal books to the Bible. Instead, the Protestant Reformers excised
out of the Bible these books that had been in common use for centuries.

The Council of Trent, convened to reaffirm Catholic doctrines and to revitalize
the Church, proclaimed that these books had always belonged to the Bible
and had to remain in it. After all, it was the Catholic Church, in the
fourth century, at the councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage (A.D. 382,
393, 397, respectively), that officially decided which books belonged to
the Bible and which did not. This had been reaffirmed by many popes and
councils later, including the ecumenical Council of Florence. When the
Council of Trent was convened, it merely formally restated the constant
teaching of the Church.

A Final Word

Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that few people in America hate the Catholic
religion, but there are many who hate what they mistakenly believe is the
Catholic religion—and that if what they hate really were the Catholic
religion, Catholics would hate it too. Highly inaccurate and inflammatory
lists, like the one published in Boettner’s Roman Catholicism, have
done much to foster this kind of hatred. Even worse, they have discouraged
Fundamentalists from finding out what the Catholic religion really is,
and that is a disservice both to Protestants and to Catholics.

Like others before him, Loraine Boettner found an enemy of his own fashioning.
He castigated it, misrepresented it, and ridiculed it; but it was not the
Catholic religion as it truly is, and the "history" he presented
is not the history of the Catholic Church. Fundamentalists who are curious
about the Catholic religion do themselves no favor by allowing themselves
to be hoodwinked by such lists of "inventions." If they want
to know what really happened, how Catholic beliefs and practices really
arose, they will have to turn to more careful and better-informed writers.